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SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin: 'CRM Space Has Underinvested in the Needs of the Individual'

Article type:

News

Publication:

destinationCRM.com

SugarCRM will devote its engineering budget to user-friendly changes in 2014.

SugarCRM is bullish on its future and that of the CRM market as a whole. The privately held CRM provider announced it had 77 percent year-over-year growth in 2013, which marks its 17th consecutive quarter of growth. For the year ahead, the company announced a new focus on the individual, which its is dubbing "iCRM." Engineering budgets will be weighted toward user-friendly changes, and sales teams will focus on selling the solution as friendly to fellow salespeople and end users rather than management.

On a phone call with CRM magazine, CEO Larry Augustin outlined the company's plan for growth. One step is to increase the number of seats used by each organization. People who work as receptionists or on financials are among those SugarCRM sees as able to benefit from a CRM system. "More and more people in companies are in the position of having to interact with the customer," Augustin says, a trend he sees driven by the Internet and social media.

SugarCRM also plans to continue its expansion into the enterprise market, serving companies with 250 to 2,000 employees. "We're reaching that midmarket space in an aggressive way. Many companies that should have a CRM solution in place don't have one."